Submission 38,820

About

Cheesing is an Internet slang term referring to the practice of purposefully exploiting a glitch or other elements of gameplay mechanics to the player's advantage, particularly within the subgenres of competitive fighting games and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games.

Origin

The coinage of the term, as it is used in the context of video gaming, can be traced back to the players of the 1991 arcade fighting game Street Fighter; the earliest known online mention of "cheesing" can be found in a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) for Street Fighter II that was posted via Usenet's newsgroup alt.games.sf2 as early as on August 25th, 1993.

04. What is considered "cheap"? This is actually a tough one to answer. Most people sav something is cheap is they can't seem to stop something that kills them. Of course this varies from place to place. You would want to ask many local players what they think. Most things considered "cheap" are playing styles. You might constantly electrocute your opponent w/ Blanka, but he should have blocked Of you may grab the opponent w/ Honda, then pummel them with a HHS. People may not like this, and you might be called cheap for doing so. One last thing that may be considered cheap is iumping attacks then throwing. This is not uncounterable, but it may be difficult to see. Here are some examples of play styles that may be called "cheap": Fireball Traps Grabbing then HHS w/ Honda Zangief's SPD (not!) Playing keep away Picking Vega or Bison (1) Cheesing them w/ Bison Electricity then bite w/ Blanka Doing FB-DP all the time Jumping all the time Chun Li's flipping neck breaker More or less anything that people might find difficult or nearlv impossible to defeat. It might be annoving, but cries of chearp might be heard instead. It might all be related to your skill level in the game as well, or how inventive you are. Most people say that "tickinq" is cheap. (See the question. This is so because it is *easy* to execute and *impossible* to counter. Now, for some master players, this is not so since it is part of how they play aqainst each other (I play this way). To the average player though, such things as umping a lot, making the opponent block all the time, waiting in the corner after seriously damaging the opponent, etc. might be considered cheap. It's kind of a broad definition, depending on who you ask. Just for the record, I don't think that anything is cheap. tion of cheap may or may not change. It depends on how you play, where and who vou play against. For all those concerned: this might be an opinion of what cheap is. Most importantly, it may be biased by where I play and who I play aqainst. Ask who vou play!<caine> As your skills improve, your defini-

04. What is considered "cheap"?

* Fireball Traps
* Grabbing then HHS w/ Honda
* Zangief's SPD (not!)
* Playing keep away
* Picking Vega or Bison (!)
* Cheesing them w/ Bison
* Electricity then bite w/ Blanka
* Doing FB-DP all the time
* Jumping all the time
* Chun Li's flipping neck breaker

Spread

On November 20th, 2003, RPGNet forum member ReverendKeith started a discussion thread asking others for advice on "how to cheese" in the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeon & Dragons 3.5 Edition.

On April 27th, 2004, Urban Dictionary user KarmaGhost submitted an entry for the term "cheeser," defining the often-stigmatized practice of exploit in fighting games for the first time:

cheeser in the gaming world, a person who repeatedly performs the same moves in fighting games (such as in Soul Caliber, Street Fighter, etc) in order to win Wow, Jimmy is such a cheeser; all he ever does is that damned sweep-kick. by KarmaGhost April 27, 2004

On October 19th, 2004, GameSpot published an article titled "Ten Things That Need To Change in Sports Games," in which the author Brian Ekberg underscores the phenomenon of cheesing in online sport games as a poorly formed practice.

Incapable of winning by skill, wit, or a combination of the two, the cheeser instead exploits a particular feature of a money play and drives it (and you) into the ground. On the other hand, the sheer prevalence of cheesers found online means it can be darn near impossible to find a good contest against a perfect stranger. As it stands now, the best defense against cheese is simply refusing to play anyone you don't know.

On December 1st, 2005, IGN forum member LegacyAccount explained how easy it is to defeat an opponent in most popular fighting arcade games by "cheesing and "button mashing" in rebuttal to the thread "Virtua Fighter = The Worst Fighting Game Ever." Throughout the latter half of the 2000s, "cheesing" continued to gain traction as a widespread glitch-exploiting tactic through its appearance on various guides and cheat sheets for various action role playing and real-time strategy games, such as Dark Souls and Starcraft, and multiplayer online sports games like Madden NFL, NBA Live and FIFA, as well as first-person shooter (FPS) and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, including Battlefield, World of Warcraft and Destiny, among many others.

Academic Research

On August 24th, 2006, MIT Press published a research paper titled "The Ecology of Games" which describes "cheesing" as a practice of exploit that is largely stigmatized by the online gaming community as it diverges from the norms and conventions of gameplay. In November 2009, The International Journal of Computer Game Research ran an academic paper titled "Cheesers, Pullers, and Glitchers: The Rhetoric of Sportsmanship and the Discourse of Online Sports Gamers," in which the co-authors and video game scholars, Ryan M. Moeller, Bruce Esplin and Steven Conway, address the enduring issue of "cheesers" in online sports games like Electronic Arts' Madden NFL series.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Urban Dictionary – Cheesing

^[2] GameFAQs – What is cheesing?

^[3] Urban Dictionary – Cheeser

^[4] GamesRadar – Why I Love Cheesing Games

^[5] Operation Sports – What is considered cheesing?

^[6] Wikipedia – Rush

^[7] Yahoo Answers – Can someone please explain to me what cheesing is in games like nba 2k9?

^[8] PP Gaming – The thrill of cheesing a video game

^[9] EA Forums – What Qualifies As Cheesing?

^[10] GamesRadar – Cheesing Destiny is big, clever, and something you really should do

^[11] StackExchange – Origins of the gaming term 'cheese strategy'

^[12] RPGnet – Thread: Show me how to cheese with D&D 3.5/e

^[13] Super Cheats – Advanced Coliseum FAQ

Recent Images 4 total

View All Images

Recent Videos 11 total

View All Videos

Load 50 Comments

Cheesing

PROTIP: Press 'i' to view the image gallery, 'v' to view the video gallery, or 'r' to view a random entry.

This submission is currently being researched & evaluated!

You can help confirm this entry by contributing facts, media, and other evidence of notability and mutation.